Last December, Israel Joffe at Fox Newsargued Atlantic City may go the way of Detroit. At the same time, State Senate President Stephen Sweeney in New Jersey and Chris Christie said they would not let Atlantic City "become Detroit." Now, just six months later, Atlantic City is facing a wave of casino closings. The city started the year with 12 casinos. By Labor Day, it may have just nine.

Atlantic City Mayor Don Guardian is looking at the silver lining, hoping that as casinos close shop, Atlantic City can create new and different vacation destinations. "Although it is sad today, it's part of the transition that Atlantic City needs to have," he said, "There is pain as we go through this transition, but it's critical for Atlantic City to realize we are no longer the monopoly of gaming on the East Coast. If you build more and more casinos and don't increase the amount of people coming to them, you're sharing that wealth. We're just going through a very difficult time."

The closings are indeed sad, but not too surprising given recent trends. In 2006, Atlantic City's casino revenue was $5.2 billion. Last year, it was just $2.86 billion. The saturation has hit them not only from neighboring Jersey casinos, but also from locations in Pennsylvania, New York, and Maryland. Pennsylvania has become the second largest casino destination in the country (after Nevada.)

The Wire spoke with a front desk employee at Showboat, who told us Caesars did notify employees they can begin applying for new roles immediately, "We haven't started getting employees situated but they are aware that they can apply. When it is in house, they have to give them an interview. So it's a guaranteed foot in the door." For employees, this came as a shock. "Truthfully, with a casino, nothing is permanent. But with this one, everyone was shocked, we thought the business was doing okay, we were making money, but it was a little slow. This came from management, from finance. So we were surprised."

Though many individuals are upset, this could be a good move for the casino market as a whole. By removing some of the saturation in Jersey, the market will get smaller, pouring more gambling revenue into the remaining locations. Fitch Ratings told their investors, "Caesars will likely recapture most of the Showboat customers at its three other resorts in Atlantic City." Analysts at Goldman Sachs and UBS agreed that a smaller market would be better for the surviving casinos.

However, no one is sure exactly the right size for this smaller market. Guardian said he was unsure how many casinos he believes Atlantic City can and should support, saying, "The market is going to set that. At some point you're going to have the right number of casinos."

This article is from the archive of our partner The Wire.

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